The subject matter disclosed herein relates to gas turbine engines and, more particularly, to blade verification plates that facilitate the location of the leading edge of the blades on a rotor within a turbine engine, such as a gas turbine engine or a steam turbine engine, and further provide an indication as to whether the blade clocking is within an acceptable tolerance range.
Clocking of blades on rotating rotors or wheels is common in gas turbine engines, especially on modern rotors. Clocking generally refers to the relative positioning of two rows of blades or airfoils with respect to each other (e.g., the blades on two adjacent stages of a compressor), wherein such blade positioning can affect the efficiency of the gas turbine. Prior methods for determining whether the blade clocking is within an acceptable tolerance range involve manual measurements taken using a plum line and a ruler with two or more stages stacked on top of each other. This method suffers from obvious inherent inaccuracies associated with manual measurements and is time consuming. It is also known to use a computerized measurement system for ascertaining blade clocking. However, this method is costly.